


you can be king again.

by thir13enth



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: F!Byleth, F/M, POV Second Person, a writing exercise if you will, being cautious with the tags, discusses some violence, honestly... this ended up being more a perspective study, implies some trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-07
Updated: 2020-04-07
Packaged: 2021-03-01 20:08:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 966
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23522821
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thir13enth/pseuds/thir13enth
Summary: reclaim your crown. your queen is at your side.
Relationships: Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd/My Unit | Byleth
Kudos: 26





	you can be king again.

**Author's Note:**

> originally for the prompt “the reason why” for the felannie discord’s guess the author event. then it turned into a monster.

The night is endless.

Shadows swallow you whole, and stars devour your remaining sanity. The night is long, dark, cold — but not quiet. Never quiet. You hear voices all the time, and you can’t make out the words, but you can feel the dread and the anger and the blame. They call upon you, and even when you try to ignore them, they trickle through in your sleep, taint the crevices of your mind.

The days are equally boundless. When the first ray of sun lightens the sky, you wake. But from what? Were you ever asleep? And are you ever awake? How can you tell the difference when both wake and sleep are nightmares? All you do is count the passing minutes, count the demons you rid, count the injustices — the tens, the hundreds, the thousands. At some point, everything becomes infinite.

Rats, everywhere. Are you prey, or are you predator? Neither. You are dead. A corpse, a shell of skin and flesh and bones. Were you ever human to begin with? You have been empty since you lost the chance to say goodbye to your mother’s body when she burned, since your second mother preferred to look to the distance rather than closely at you, since you became the spoiled prince sitting in the tower while the king and the knights fell to tragedy, since your country became overrun by monsters. 

Somehow you stand and walk. Somehow you murder, you maim.

Once you were king.

You were given responsibility, a legacy, a position you never deserved to have. The Goddess has an odd sense of humor — putting you on its pedestal. But you wear a crown of thorns at best. Nothing has ever been in your control. How long has everything been manipulated by the powerful? The rich become richer, the strong become stronger. Everything else is left in shambles, broken by the lady in red —

Red. _Red_. Everything is _red_.

Red like the blood you spill, red like the anger in your eyes. _Why is everything red?_ Everything evil is red. Hell, the Devil, the carriage fire your step-mother walked through without a burn, the viscous blood that stains your hands and crusts under your fingernails, the Empire’s flag and force — and then suddenly you remember the color of her cape, the color of her glowing axe, the color of her dress, the color of her lips, the color of that _apple_ you saw her eat when you saw her last at the Academy. She smiled like everything was alright with the world. She smiled like she hadn’t had a hand in all this destruction, like she wasn’t pulling the strings to bend the meek to her will.

Suddenly everything makes sense. She’s behind it all. She did it all. She lied to you, too. You gave her the dagger to cut through to the future. _You_ let her slip by. _You_ were her pawn, and naïve little _you_ didn’t even know it.

Stupid you. You deserved to learn the hard way.

Everything tastes like blood.

It doesn’t matter what you eat. Nothing can rid you of this metal taste. The only things that taste good are the moments you release your anger. It feels good — tastes incredibly delicious to unleash retribution, to deliver justice.

You find you rather like the sound of ribs cracking under your touch, the look of wild despair in a rat’s eyes, the easy pull from a dead body when you withdraw your lance. Does it matter how much they suffer if they’re going to die anyway? Does it matter if they suffer at all for how much suffering _they’ve_ caused?

You feel lighter with every kill, but your chest stays so heavy. You feed your vengeance, but it is bottomless, and it never ends. Where does all this anger come from? Not from your still heart nor the pit of your growling stomach — it’s in _every damn cell_ of your body. Your body remembers what happened to you, even if your mind is too ignorant to realize its justification.

Now you don’t even need a reason — in the silence, you hear cries for help and screams of suffering. This is what fuels you.

This is what you are.

She brings the sun.

At first, you think she is a ghost. She gives you a smile — full, from her green eyes to her full lips — and you think she’s mocking you, laughing at you, _haunting_ you for your failures. For how much you let her down, you’re surprised her illusion never came sooner.

After all, she was the miracle the Church was waiting for. She held the Creator’s sword and wielded its power like she was the very reason it was made. She was the answer to everything, and there were no problems she couldn’t solve.

You’re convinced that what stands before you is only your hallucination. It can’t be her.

But then she takes your hand. Her touch is gentle like moonlight after the night rain. Warm like the summer breeze over the ocean water. She’s tender, she’s soft, and most of all, she’s _real_.

She’s real — body solid, heart intact. More certain than the sunrise. As sure as the pass of time.

She tells you to stand. You rise. Your eyes can’t meet hers.

She tells you to look at her. She tells you to hold your head high. You do.

You see the future — the shine of your golden crown, the blush of new life — in her eyes. There’s a blinding light behind her, and you squint in order to face her. It’s like she’s source of all the brightness, but then your eyes adjust and you realize it’s actually from the horizon beyond.

You start to think she’s the reason why dawn finally breaks.

**Author's Note:**

> you know how to [find me](https://www.twitter.com/napsbeforesleep)


End file.
